Woodrow Wilson - American neutrality 1914—1916

With the outbreak of a general war in Europe in early August 1914, the
great majority of Americans gave thanks for the Atlantic Ocean. Wilson and
his advisers acted quickly to establish formal neutrality and to meet the
rude shocks caused by the total disorganization of world markets and
trade. In addition, Wilson, on 17 August 1914, appealed to his
"fellow countrymen" to be "impartial in thought as
well as in action."

Wilson then turned his attention to British encroachments against neutral
trade with Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers). He first
tried to persuade the British to adhere to the Declaration of London of
1909, which purported to codify existing international law and was
extremely protective of neutral commerce. But the British were determined
to use their overwhelming sea power to cut Germany off from life-giving
supplies, and Wilson had no recourse but to fall back upon ambiguous
international law to protect American trading rights. This he did in a
note to the British Foreign Office on 26 December 1914.

The European theater of war was in delicate balance by the end of 1914.
The British controlled the seas, and the French and British armies had
repelled a German advance toward Paris. German armies in the east were on
the move in Poland, but they were still far from their main eastern enemy,
Russia. In these circumstances of stalemate, American neutrality seemed
secure.

The announcement by the German government on 4 February 1915 that it would
thereafter use its small submarine fleet to sink all Allied ships within a
broad war zone without warning posed a grave threat to American
neutrality, since the Germans also said that, because submarine commanders
would sometimes find it impossible to discriminate between enemy and
neutral ships, neutral ships would not be safe from torpedoes. Wilson, on
10 February, sent a conventional warning to Berlin to the effect that the
United States would hold Germany to a "strict
accountability" for the destruction of American ships and lives on
the high seas. What that warning meant in practical terms, no one,
including the leaders in Washington, knew. For example, when a submarine
sank a British passenger ship without warning off the coast of Africa on
28 March 1915 and caused the death of one American, Wilson decided not to
act or even to protest. However, it was impossible to do nothing when a
submarine sank the great British liner
Lusitania
without warning on 7 May 1915, causing the death of more than 1,200
noncombatants, including 128 Americans.

Wilson was in a dilemma worse than the one occasioned by his occupation of
Veracruz. It was obvious that the American people wanted him to defend
their right to travel in safety upon the seas; it was also obvious that a
majority of Americans and of the members of Congress did not want to go to
war to vindicate this right. Moreover, the cabinet and Wilson's
advisers in the State Department were about evenly divided over a wise and
proper response to the sinking of the
Lusitania
. Secretary of State Bryan pleaded with Wilson to acquiesce in the
submarine blockade by warning Americans not to travel on Allied ships.
Robert Lansing, then second in command of the State Department, pressed
Wilson to send a peremptory demand to Germany for an apology, a disavowal,
and a promise that submarines in the future would obey international
law—that is, commanders would have to warn ships and permit
passengers and crews to escape before the ships were sunk.

Wilson, taking high humanitarian ground, addressed two appeals to the
German government to abandon the entire submarine campaign, at least
against unarmed and unresisting liners and merchantmen. When the German
government refused, Wilson, on 21 July, sent a third note, which admitted
that it was possible to conduct a submarine campaign in substantial
accordance with international law. But the note ended with the warning
that the United States government would hereafter regard ruthless attacks
on merchant ships and liners, when they affected American citizens, as
"deliberately unfriendly"—that is, as an act of war.

Wilson desperately wanted to avoid war. At the very time that he was
writing the
Lusitania
notes, he sent two moving appeals to the German government to join him in
a campaign to establish real freedom of the seas—that is, to force
the British to observe international law. Wilson also planned to rally the
other neutrals to win the same objective. But the civilian leaders in
Berlin were engaged in a desperate struggle with military and naval
leaders over submarine policy and could not return a positive response to
Wilson's overtures. Had they done so, the outcome of the war might
well have been very different.

Bryan resigned as secretary of state on 8 June rather than continue a
correspondence that he said might eventuate in hostilities with Germany.
Wilson, somewhat reluctantly, appointed Lansing to succeed Bryan. Wilson
continued to maintain close personal control over important foreign
policies, but it was hard to do this with Lansing in command at the State
Department because the new secretary, bent on war with Germany, tried at
critical points to thwart or undermine Wilson's diplomacy. Lansing
was also, by Wilson's standards, legalistic and reactionary.

The crisis with Germany came to a sudden head when the commander who had
sent the
Lusitania
to the bottom sank another large British liner, the
Arabic
, without warning on 19 August 1915, with forty-four casualties, including
two Americans. Wilson did not resort to public correspondence, but he made
it clear to the German government that he would break diplomatic relations
if it did not disavow the sinking of the
Arabic
and promise that submarines would thereafter warn unarmed passenger ships
and provide for the safety of their passengers and crews before sinking
them. Kaiser Wilhelm II finally hardened his courage and, on 30 August
1915, ordered his naval commanders to cease the submarine campaign against
all passenger ships. Under instructions from his superiors, the German
ambassador in Washington, Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, informed
Lansing on 1 September, "Liners will not be sunk by our submarines
without warning and without safety of the lives of noncombatants, provided
that the liners do not try to escape or offer resistance."

Americans hailed the so-called
Arabic
pledge as a great triumph for their president. Actually, what Wilson had
done was to narrow the submarine dispute to the sole issue of the safety
of unarmed passenger ships. Submarines were still free to prowl the seas
and sink merchantmen without warning. The kaiser called all submarines
back to their bases temporarily, in order to avoid any further incidents.
But the Germans had not renounced the important aspects of the underseas
campaign—the war against merchant shipping—and Wilson had in
effect withdrawn his demand that they do so.

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How about the presence of munitions on a passenger liner? Was Col. House Wilson's military advisor involved in shipping munitions on this ship (and others) in violation of official U.S. policy? Was Ship armed? There are rumors that cannon were removed from wreck by divers.

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